“But you didn’t.”
“How do you know? Brother tell you that?”
“No. I thought you sounded sad when you said it.”
“Marrying can make you sad too. Sometimes sadder than not marrying.” Fern made a noise that might have been a laugh. “But I don’t know if we’d have had that kind of sad. He died. Maia died with him.”
Jay glanced over at Kate, but she was watching Fern with wary eyes as she stepped up behind Birdie and put her arm around her. Jay hesitated, not sure he should ask any more questions.
The woman suddenly poked him in the chest with the point of her finger. “Go ahead and ask. You want to.”
“All right then.” Jay stood his ground even though the woman’s shoes were practically nudging against his toes. “Who’s Maia?”
“A girl who lived a long time ago and lost everything.” There was no doubt about the sadness laced through her voice this time.
“Fern, does Aunt Hattie know where you are?” Kate asked softly.
Fern made the noise that might have been a laugh again, but she didn’t look over at Kate. She kept her eyes straight on Jay’s face. “See. She thinks I’m silly in the head too, but she’s better than most. Me and her, we take care of the little girl.”
“I’m not little anymore,” Birdie spoke up.
“Little enough.” Fern glanced over at her. “Still need taking care of.” Then her eyes were boring into Jay again. “You remember that, Jay like the bird. Don’t you do nothing to hurt our little girl.” She poked Jay in the chest again. “You remember that.”
Jay finally stepped back from her. “Yes ma’am, Miss Fern like the plant. You don’t have to worry about me.”
She leaned forward and scowled first at him, then at Kate. “Hattie don’t worry about me. She understands freedom. Could be, someday you will too. If you ever break loose.”
“Break loose of what?” Kate asked.
“That question’s for you. Not me.” As quickly as she had stepped out of the shadows, she stepped back into them and disappeared.
“Bye, Fern,” Birdie called after her.
They stood silent for a moment where she’d left them, but Jay couldn’t hear her leaving. It was like she dissolved into the trees alongside the road.
“Welcome to midnight in Rosey Corner,” Kate said. He could tell she was smiling even before he looked over at her.
“It’s not midnight,” Birdie said. “Is it?”
“No.” Kate laughed. “But midnight’s when the spooks come out.”
“Fern’s not a spook,” Birdie said stoutly.
“Of course not. I shouldn’t have said that.” Kate leaned over and kissed the top of Birdie’s head.
“What should you have said?” Jay asked as they began walking again.
“That Lorena may be the only person in the whole world Fern loves and who loves her back.”
“What about Graham?” Jay asked.
“She endures Graham. And Graham does what he has to in order to take care of her. It’s easier than it used to be, since she does sometimes sleep at Aunt Hattie’s house. But when the moon is full . . .” Kate let her words trail off.
A shiver crawled up Jay’s spine and he couldn’t keep from glancing over his shoulder to make sure Fern wasn’t sneaking up on them again.
Kate laughed. “She won’t hurt you. She doesn’t even carry her little hatchet around with her these days. Not unless she’s going out in the woods where some of the cedars are coming back after the fire we had several years ago.”
“She makes cedar palaces,” Birdie said. “I’ll show you one of them if you want me to.”
“Maybe someday,” Jay said. “But who was the Maia she was talking about?”
“Maia.” Kate sighed a little and all the teasing went out of her voice. “She told me once that’s what her true love called her, but he died in a tragic accident before they could get married. I’ve seen a portrait of her when she was young. She was beautiful.”
“Fern?” Beautiful didn’t seem to be a word anybody would use to describe the woman he’d just seen.
“Yes, Fern,” Kate said. “All that was a long time ago. Graham says she almost died during the influenza outbreak in 1918 and hasn’t been the same since. Or who knows? Maybe it was her broken heart that changed her.”
“I like her the way she is,” Birdie said.
“Yes. Yes, you do.” Kate reached out and squeezed Birdie’s hand. “But enough about sad things. We’re not walking to a dirge. We’re marching in a parade.” She cupped her hands and put them to her mouth to make a horn sound.
He had jumped in with a rat-a-tat and Graham’s sister was forgotten. Magic had seemed to mix in the moonlight until Jay wondered if he might be dreaming it all. The strange woman. Rosey Corner. Kate. The cute little sister who broke out in song with no urging. The easy laughter between them.
Now Mike wanted him to wake up from that dream. To knock back the good feelings and remember he wasn’t good enough. His best friend, Mike. He hadn’t actually said those exact words out loud. But he had wanted to put up a barrier between Jay and Kate. It didn’t matter if the words were spoken aloud or not. They were there—in both their heads.
At dawn he started his car and drove back to Edgeville. He’d find a map and move on. He didn’t have any reason to go back to Rosey Corner. Clean breaks were always the best. Just disappear. He hated not telling the kid goodbye. He liked Birdie. And she’d already had too many people disappearing from her life. Graham had told Jay her story. How she’d been dropped on the church steps like an unwanted puppy. How she knew her name and that was about all. How she believed someday her parents would come back.
He could tell her things like that didn’t happen. Nobody came back. Now he wouldn’t be coming back. What was it Graham had said about him? That he wasn’t a finisher. That wasn’t exactly true. He did finish things. By chopping them off clean.
He stopped at the first eating place he came to. A rundown shack with a sign promising home cooking. He was finishing his plate of eggs and bacon when a man in overalls came in looking for help putting up a late crop of hay. A day’s labor for some more coin in his pocket. A good enough reason to not put more miles between him and Rosey Corner until tomorrow. In fact Mr. Franklin’s farm was back toward Rosey Corner. Jay tried not to think about that as he forked hay up on the man’s wagon, but the place pulled at him. Kate pulled at him. The kid pulled at him.
As the sun was beginning to sink in the west, they hauled the last load into the barn to leave on the wagon until morning. The farmer had milking to do. When Jay jumped down to pull open the barn doors, a black pup ran out to bark at the horses pulling the wagon.
“Dang fool pup.” Mr. Franklin tightened his hold on the reins. The horses threw up their heads and shifted their feet uneasily as the dog nipped at them. “Whoa!”
One of the horses lifted a hoof and easily kicked the pup aside. The pup yelped and scurried over to hide behind Jay.
The farmer leaned over to spit on the ground. “Should’ve shot that worthless mutt when it first showed up last week.”
“Not your dog then?” Jay picked up the trembling pup and cradled it against his chest. The pup’s tail began wagging as he licked Jay’s chin. “He’s friendly. What do you think he is? Some kind of shepherd mix?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. It ain’t staying around here. Not alive anyhow.”
“How about I take him off your hands?” Jay said.
“Suits me.”
Jay held onto the pup while the farmer paid him and offered Jay a job repairing fences the next day if he wanted to come back. “But don’t bring that pup. It ain’t nothing but trouble.”
“Don’t worry, boy,” Jay said as he put the pup in his car. “People been saying the same about me ever since I can remember.”
At the end of the farmer’s lane, Jay turned his car back toward Rosey Corner. “Old Poe won’t know what hit him, will he, boy? But it
’ll just be for a day or two till I can take you to Birdie. She’s going to love you.”
He smiled as he drove. And he was going to love having a reason to show up at the Merritts’ house again. He might even have to hang around long enough to build a pen for the pup. He might not be good enough, but maybe the pup would be. Something to remember him by.
16
Graham came in the store on Monday, earlier than most days. He was alone. “How’s business?” he asked.
“Seeing as how you’re the only customer in the place, I guess that depends on what you’re buying.” Kate smiled and peered out toward the door to see if Jay was following him in.
Ever since Friday night, smiles had come easy. A moonlit parade through Rosey Corner had proven to be a spirit lifter. Even with Fern’s spooky appearance out of the gloaming. Kate ought to be used to that by now, but sometimes it still startled her and made her jump. Something that always brought that shadow of a smile to Fern’s face.
Jay had been a little spooked by Fern too, even though he pretended not to be. Kate knew exactly how he felt when he looked over his shoulder after Fern disappeared back into the shadows. The shivers up the back that could come from feeling eyes watching from the trees. She doubted he’d ever met anyone like Fern the plant. Thinking about it, Kate’s smile got a little bigger.
Graham picked up a chocolate bar and a banana and then added a can of mackerel for Poe, who had plopped down out by the front door to wait for him. “Breakfast,” Graham said. He pulled back the banana peel and took a bite. “Put it on my tab. I ain’t too far behind on paying, am I?”
“No, you paid Mama last week, remember?” Kate pulled out the ledger from under the counter and thumbed through the pages to find Graham’s name.
“That’s right. So I did. Where’s your mama?”
“Daddy borrowed Uncle Wyatt’s car to take her to Edgeville to pick up some stock.” She licked the pencil lead to make it write darker and wrote down the cost of Graham’s purchases.
“Victor needs to break down and buy a car.”
“I think he would if he didn’t feel it would be betraying every horse he ever shod.”
“Plus he’d have to let you girls drive.” Graham took another bite of banana.
“I can drive. I drive Mike’s car sometimes.” Kate closed the book and stuck it back on the shelf under the counter.
“But you only drive it here around Rosey Corner. Not off to some big town or anything.”
“I might get my own car someday,” Kate said.
“I fully expect you to or to meet a fellow who has one. Then you’re liable to drive clear across the country to who knows where.” He finished off the banana and pitched the peel into the trash can. “Speaking of driving clear across country, I don’t guess you’ve laid eyes on Jay lately, have you?”
“Not since Friday night. I was wondering where he was.” Kate looked past Graham toward the door again. “But then I heard you finally finished up Mrs. Harrelson’s house. Did that dissolve your business partnership?”
“Could be. Or maybe Preacher Mike made him a better offer.”
“Mike?”
“He came by to see him Sunday. The two of them went for a walk. I heard the boy’s car start up not long after that, and I ain’t seen hide nor hair of him since.”
“Oh.” Kate felt a sinking feeling, and her smile that had come so easy a few minutes ago was now straining her lips. Mike must have told Jay to leave. But surely he wouldn’t have left forever without even saying goodbye. If not to her, then at least to Lorena. He’d acted as though he really cared about Lorena. And Graham. And her.
Graham huffed a breath of air out his nose. “I’m hearing a pile of words under that oh. You want to share any of them with me?”
“I don’t know.” Kate kept her eyes away from Graham as she ran her finger along the top of the cash register. Dust had a way of gathering there. She brushed her hand off on her apron and looked back at Graham, who was still watching her and hadn’t even opened his chocolate bar yet. “Really, I don’t. Except last week Mike told me it would be better if I didn’t get too friendly with Jay. Maybe he told Jay the same thing yesterday. That he shouldn’t get too friendly with me. Or maybe Alice Wilcher.”
“That Alice could run a man off all by herself.” Graham tore off the candy wrapper and took a bite. He looked to be thinking hard while he chewed. “So you think Preacher Mike might have done some preaching.”
“That’s what preachers do.” Kate blinked a couple of times. She swallowed hard and forced out more words. “But we all knew Jay wasn’t going to stay around long. He helped you finish Mrs. Harrelson’s house. Maybe that was all we could expect.”
“You could be right. Could be I shouldn’t have offered him a bed in the first place, but I liked the boy.”
“Everybody likes Jay.” Kate grabbed a rag to rub off the counter. It wasn’t dirty, but she needed to be doing something. Anything but looking at Graham.
“Even you?”
“Even me.”
Graham watched her trying to scrub holes in the counter. At last he said, “The boy might not be gone forever. He might come back.”
Kate shut her eyes a moment and then looked straight at Graham. “Probably be better if he didn’t.” She didn’t bother trying to smile. He knew her too well to be fooled by a fake smile.
Graham broke off a piece of his chocolate bar to hand to her. “One thing you can count on is that life keeps rolling along no matter what happens. As long as you’re still breathing, there’s a chance for happiness around the next corner.”
“But what if you don’t ever turn any corners and just keep standing in the same place?”
“There’s all kinds of corners to turn. Me, I haven’t been out of Rosey Corner since I don’t know when, but I’m always heading around happiness corners. Out in the woods with Poe. Catching fish with Victoria and Sammy. Watching Victor bend a piece of iron into some fanciful shape. Hearing that little Lorena giggle at one of my stories. Sharing a chocolate bar with you.” He reached over and touched Kate’s hand. “But your corners won’t all be here in Rosey Corner. You’ll be going around some different corners.”
“When’s that?”
“When you’re ready.”
Kate found her smile again then. Not the easy one from earlier, but one Graham would understand. “Thanks, Graham. You and Poe are the best friends a girl could have.”
After he left, the store seemed too empty with no new customers coming through the door. Monday mornings were always slow, but she couldn’t just stand there and stare at the empty doorway. She grabbed the broom and headed outside to sweep away the leaves that had gathered overnight on the concrete slab in front of the store.
She sent the leaves flying with her broom. It was good that Jay Tanner was gone. Jay Tanner wasn’t her happiness corner. He wouldn’t have brought her anything but trouble. She didn’t have the first reason to feel sad. She hadn’t known the man but a few weeks. Hardly at all. Mike did know him. He knew him so well that he’d not only warned her but warned her mother as well. Keep your daughter away from Jay Tanner.
Kate paused in her sweeping for a moment and stared toward the church. She could just see its white siding through the trees. Whatever Mike had said to Jay on Sunday had made him leave. Mike would be glad. He’d think he solved the problem that in some ways he’d brought to Rosey Corner by asking Jay to be his best man. But the problem was, Kate wasn’t glad the problem was solved.
From the other direction she heard children playing. Morning recess time at the school. Lorena would be running out to play with the other kids. In Edgeville, Tori and Sammy would be going to classes at the high school. In Frankfort, Evie would be sitting at her desk typing letters for her boss.
Kate shut her eyes for a minute and thought about her own fingers touching the keys of a typewriter. Not typing letters for some boss, but typing up her own stories. She’d read that stories had to be typed before ma
gazines would consider them for publication. Double-spaced. She’d gotten a book from the library about writing. But her stories were still in notebooks under her bed. Untyped. Unread. Unready.
She sighed and began sweeping again even though she’d already cleared away the leaves. Some dreams were too big. Maybe it was time for her to be sensible about that too, the same as being sensible about Jay Tanner being gone. Her mother needed her help at the store. Rosey Corner needed a store where people could get the things they wanted. In time, she could go get a job in Edgeville or maybe even Lexington, but right now she needed to be in Rosey Corner.
She shouldn’t even be thinking about her stories when so many bad things were going on in the world. If she wanted to think about writing, she should think about writing news reports or letters to lonely soldiers. But wait. Alice Wilcher and her friends were doing that. At least to Carl. That was good. She couldn’t write to Carl. Not now. She couldn’t even write to Jay Tanner. Who knew where he would go from here? The only person who might know that would be Mike. Mike who had fixed things by making Jay leave.
What would she tell Lorena? The sound of the schoolkids playing drifted down toward her. A happy sound.
A Ford slowed on the road and turned into the store. Kate was glad when the woman eased up to the gas pump. Mrs. Moore rolled down her window and asked for two dollars’ worth of gas. While Kate set the pump and turned the handle to start the gasoline flowing, she asked the woman how she was doing.
“Oh, honey, not too well.” Mrs. Moore sounded near tears as she looked back toward Kate. “My nephew over in Franklin County got drafted. He’s a good boy, got a girlfriend and a good job. But my sister says he has to go to the Army. She sounded worried sick in the letter I got Friday. This is the first chance I’ve had to go see her. I haven’t been off the farm for over a week. Didn’t even make it to church yesterday. Harold had a cow down and you know what the Bible says about an ox in the ditch. Anyway we don’t have a radio. No way to get any news. Do you know how things are going over there?”
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